|
|
|
|
Site Index | CVA Index | Site Map | Native American Home
|
|
|
|
Hopi and other Pueblo Groups
"Pueblo" people
"Pueblo" people grouped together because of similar way of life, but each tribe is unique. Several different language groups are represented among the tribes and the culture is somewhat different.
Hopi Background
Name: "Moqui" – but changed to Hopi.
Located in N.E. Arizona, surrounded by Navajo reservation.
Black Mesa, on 3 projections: First, Second, and Third mesa.
Spanish Contact
Coronado Expedition of 1540 came to Hopi.
Antonio de Espejo, 1583 welcomed at Hopi.
Submitted to Spanish authority in 1598.
Missionaries unsuccessful.
Hopi Origin Story
Previous life in 3 underworlds, with search for a better place, or "center place."
Sipapu.
Hero twins and other figures make journey safe for humans.
Architecture
Multi-story homes called "pueblos" by Spanish because they admired the architecture and considered it quite advanced.
Hopi use shaped stone blocks held with adobe mortar.
Pueblo Architecture
Rooms entered by ladder through roof.
Large cross-beams: vigas.
Secondary beams: latillas.
Storage rooms accessible only from inside.
Living areas with fireplaces.
Construction tasks: men and women.
Walpi Clan Relations
First Mesa
Housed associated by clan membership.
Each clan house has associated kiva or ceremonial room.
Hopi, Zuni Acoma: kivas tend to be rectangular. Rio Grande: rounded.
Pottery
Perhaps best-known artifact from Pueblos is pottery.
Traditional work of women.
Clay sources cherished; clay gathered with great care and prayer.
Coiling method used.
Dried before firing.
Maria Martinez
Most famous pueblo pottery: Maria Martinez, who worked with her husband, Julian.
San Ildefonso pueblo.
Created black on black style that has now become popular.
Subsistence Activities
Farming central activity.
Begins in February, when fields cleared for planting.
Men planted and tended crops in their wives’ fields.
Crops belonged to the wife’s clan, which managed food distribution.
Farming Methods
Field watered by seepage through rock or water flow when rains came.
Maize, beans, squash grown in same fields.
Also grew tobacco.
Women processed grains. Corn stored in dried cobs and ground later, as needed.
Piki bread famous Hopi food.
Other Foods
Men also hunted game, especially pronghorns and rabbits.
Hunting collective activity, using surround method.
Great respect showed for killed animals.
Kinship and Marriage
Hopi strongly matrilineal and matrilocal.
Bifurcate merging terminology: mother and her sisters all "mother," father and his brothers "father."
Matrilineal clan most important social tie, but father’s clan also play role.
Hopi Clans
Each clan has a "mother house," the center of clan and home of eldest women.
Clans have sacred wuya, or ancestral spirit figures. Some more than one.
Phratries: unnamed groups of clans which signify linkage in past.
Clan Identity
Clan membership crucial part of identity in Hopi culture.
Hopi men obligated to make sacred journey to bottom of Little Colorado River forge to gather salt.
Round trip takes many days and involves much ceremony.
One stop: carving clan symbol on rock at Willow springs.
Political Life
Multiple levels of leadership traditionally existed; clans were one unit but political offices existed, too.
Oraibi: Bear Clan traditionally led the village.
Symbol of office: stick or cane.
Spanish drew on this in Eastern Pueblos, also.
Hopi Religious Life
Complex religious system.
Ceremonial round required precise times and proper rituals.
Each individual in society required to play his or her part.
Central idea: connection between the living and the dead.
Life and Death Connection
The Hopi believe that the dead continue to exist as spirit beings and return in the form of clouds, bringing rain when needed in the spring and summer.
Masau’u, the God of Death, is also responsible for fertility.
Hopi Ceremonial Calendar
Cycle begins at winter solstice, late December, when days grow longer. Beginning of summer season.
Ceremonies performed by secret societies.
Some more social in nature with dances; others quite serious with sacred content.
Major Ceremonies
Wuwuchim ceremony.
Male initiation takes place every four years with this ceremony.
Renewal ceremony, "first fire."
Soyal, winter solstice.
Serious ceremony, with prohibitions and taboos.
Butterfly (summer), Buffalo Dances (winter).
More social in nature.
Major Ceremonies
Powamu: first beans are started in kivas.
Children initiated into kachina societies.
Niman: Kachinas depart.
Snake/Antelope and Flute ceremonies alternate years.
Hopi Ceremony
Fred KabotieSorcery
Hopi belief system includes witches, especially in connection with Spider Woman.
Witches can be male or female, have "two hearts" and can assume the shape of an animal to do their evil deeds.
Illness and misfortune attributed to witches.
Shamans
2 types of shamans:
Some cured physical illnesses with herbs
Others dealt with supernatural problems caused by witches.
Religion at Rio Grande Pueblos
Some of same symbols used throughout the Pueblos
E.g. Tablita headdresses, fertility symbols, and terrace/cloud symbols for rain.
Rio Grande pueblo ceremonies associated with Catholic Saint’s days, often fusing indigenous and Catholic rituals.
Social Life
Fertility encouraged, and giving birth was a major event.
Father’s mother and her sisters handled naming ceremony, establishing their clan connection.
Kachinas served as examples and disciplinary figures for children.
Social Life
Premarital sex expected; no taboos.
Marriage regulated by clan and phratry membership; families had to approve.
Marriage simple series of steps involving both families.
Bride’s marriage robes also served as burial shroud.
Social core: female relatives.
Boys trained in clan duties by uncles and in daily work by fathers; also some religious connection with father.
Contemporary Hopi Life
Reservation established in 1870, but land disputes continued.
Hopi began sheep herding as part of their subsistence in the early 1900s.
Oraibi split: conflict between progressives and conservatives.
Hopi-Navajo conflict over joint use area.
Tourism business and jewelry.
